If you need to get from Los Angeles to Tokyo, you're going to need to get on an airplane. After all, there's no highway across the Pacific Ocean that would allow you to drive or walk there.

If you planned out a flight route, you might assume that a straight line due west across the Pacific Ocean would be the quickest route. After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right?

While that's true, your route due west over the Pacific wouldn't be the most efficient. In reality, airplanes making the trip from Los Angeles to Asia would travel in an arc that would take them past parts of Alaska and Russia.

What's up with that? Why don't planes fly in a straight line? It probably has something to do with all that wind way up high in the sky, right? Or could it be because pilots can't see the ground to steer in a straight line? Maybe it has something to do with gravity pulling on the plane as it travels?

While gravity does still maintain a bit of pull on an airplane in flight, it doesn't keep it from flying in a straight line. Pilots aren't to blame either, as they do a good job of "seeing" with their machines, even in brisk winds.

The flight paths of airplanes seem strange when we see them on a flatmap for a couple of reasons. Contrary to what explorers believed hundreds of years ago, Earth is not flat. Instead, it's a sphere that's slightly flattened at the poles. When traditional flat maps are made, distortions occur when the sphere is made flat.

Those flight paths that don't appear straight on a flatmap will look quite straight if you look at them on a globe. To test it for yourself, use a string to connect two cities halfway across the world. You'll see that the flight path, as represented by the string, is not what you would expect it to be if you were looking at a flatmap.

Instead of relying on flat maps, airplanes follow "great circle" routes that account for the curvature of the Earth. What looks like a long detour on a flatmap actually turns out to be the shortestroute across the globe through the air.

The next time you think about traveling from one place to another via air, don't forget to think in three dimensions! Just follow the curve of the Earth and you'll get there in no time!

Did you get it?

Wonder What's Next?

Try It Out

Are you ready to take to the skies? Extend your WONDER by exploring the following activities with a friend or family member:

Did you know that you can test some of the scientific principles underlying flight with a simple piece of paper? Check out 10 of the Best Paper Plane Designs online to watch informative videos about how to make your own paper airplanes! Create a few masterpieces and then set them free to sail the skies!

Do all flights take you directly from your starting point to your destination? Any business traveler will tell you "No!" Although it's possible to get a direct flight between certain cities, you often have to make multiple stops (called layovers or connections) where you change planes. To learn more about how flights work, ask a friend or family member to help you research flight itineraries on online travel sites. Choose the largest airport near your home as your starting point, and then choose several dream destinations you'd love to travel to one day. Are there direct flights to any of these places? If not, how many layovers would you have before reaching your final destination?

Ready for a field trip? Ask an adult friend or family member to take you to the nearest airport. If you live in a big city, you will probably be able to visit a large airport to see lots of large airplanes take off and land. If you live in a smaller city or rural area, the nearest airport may be a small regional airport or simply an out-of-the-way landing strip. Even though it might not be a large airport, these smaller facilities can still give you a chance to see real aircraft, and you might even be able to talk to someone who can give you a behind-the-scenes tour! Have fun exploring aviation together!

brooklyn

Wonderopolis

dude

May 10, 2017

I am begging you wonderopolis to make the next wonder about wormholes pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty prettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettyprettypretty please cherry on top

zane

Wonderopolis

Miss. Nancy's Grade 3 Class

May 9, 2017

Hello this is Martha Nancy, my class was very disappointed in this . Where learning adding and subtracting in class and this has absolutely nothing to do with that. Please in your next "WONDER" put some Adding and Subtracting in it. Planes is not my classes favoured so they need something else. Wonderopolis is going down hill.

MZ

Wonderopolis

May 10, 2017

Good question! We have always heard it's safer than driving, but we think that's because most people typically spend much more time in a car than in a plane. We encourage you to do a little research on that question to find out more. Let us know what you come up with!